By T.J. Simers

So I am going to tell you the LA Times’ top sports story Wednesday morning was a trite, silly waste of space— Dodgers’ question: Who is the greatest Dodger of all time?

Radio talk shows do this kind of stuff all the time to kill time. You’ve listened to Fred Roggin, haven’t you?

Newspapers do this when the columnists don’t write, andthat happens a lot these days with the LA Times. Or, they have nothing else to put in the newspaper other than a puff piece on Lincoln Riley, telling us he was a crummy coach 11 years ago, but he pulled himself out of a hole so surely he will do it again.

Even the Times’ editors didn’t think the puff piece was worthy of showcase viewership, going to the exacto knives again to show us the Dodger possibilities in front-page cutouts.

It’s stupid, lazy and not worthy of a mention, if it hadn’t ticked me off so much.

Why would I even consider acknowledging it?

Well, Sandy Koufax comes out No. 1 and how many great years did he have? Where’s the longevity for achieving greatness?

Jackie Robinson finishes No. 2 in the BS poll, and I don’t know about him being the best Dodger of all time, but he certainly deserves No. 1 pioneer plaudits.

Lik you I’m surprised I read this far, a tribute to the Times’ troll Houston Mitchell for hooking me in the first place to this kind of brain-numbing, meaningless story that I detest.

But No. 3 is Vin Scully, and I had both Koufax and Scully on the Nokia Theatre stage for charity and the editor of the Times told me it wasn’t my job to help the misfortunate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his name on a list of greatness.

Scully loved helping the misfortunate, considering me misfortunate to be working with John Wood and Scully without having any idea what I was doing as an emcee.

I’d put Scully No. 1 on that list form bringing the Dodgers into the homes of so many for so many years. But he didn’t play the game, so I could be argued put of it and slap me for even suggesting I would argue about something the troll wrote.

No. 4 on the ridiculous list is Clayton Kershaw and did people misunderstand the question to read? Who was the Dodgers’ biggest disappointment?

I really liked Kershaw as a young Dodger pitcher, admired the way he conducted himself but cringed whenever he took the mound in the post-season. I was like a fan secretly rooting for him, but he stunk and he’s listed as the best Dodger overall at No. 4. Says a lot about the disappointing Dodgers.

No. 5 is Duke Snider, and I have a pretty simple rule: I don’t honor athletes I never saw play.

Jackie Robinson falls in that category but baseball reminds us every year what he contributed to the game with players wearing his number. No idea what Duke’s number was.

No. 6 is Don Drysdale, the third pitcher to get a mention and I thought those stupid car commercials Orel Hershiser has been doing would hurt his Dodger legacy. Don’t know why Fernando is getting overlooked, and I can hear Roggin making a big deal out of that whether he thought it was an issue or not.

No. 7, and this list is so bogus because I’ve bought into it enough to get this far is Roy Campanella who follows under my Duke Snider rule. Never saw him play.

THAT BRINGS ME TO No. 1 WHO THE TIMES HAS LISTED No. 8: Tommy Lasorda.

Are you kidding me, No. 8?

Like Scully, Lasorda spent a life time pumping up the Dodgers, every bit of his energy dedicated to eating and dripping Dodger blue. I spent a lot of time around him after he had finished managing and I saw the look on the faces of those who met him. He poised for pictures, and more pictures, slapped the men on the back, hugged the women and talked to the little ones.

I witnessed him speaking to kindergartners, and he had their attention, while never once swearing.

The Dodgers under owner Bob Daly tried to shove Lasorda into the background, sending him repeatedly to Japan for goodwill trips. Loyal but sad to know he wasn’t wanted, he kept pushing the Dodger brand.

Everything he did was to show his affection for Dodger Blue, his detractors contending it was all a play for attention, but go soak your head. He was a Dodgers’ constant, a Hall of Fame manager who just wanted to hang around with the team long after it forced him from the game with heart trouble.

I once told him he was full of it for suggesting he could take a bunch of college players to the Olympics and win a Gold Medal. When his team won the Gold I told him I was still half right; he’s full of it.

But everyone knew that, his good cheer and dribble making Dodger fans feel good about their team for more than seven decades.

He suffered the gut-wrenching death of his son, denying his son was gay, columnist Bill Plaschke, the muckraker, on Wikipedia suggesting Lasorda was lying. Who cares if his son was gay or old-school Lasorda was in denial?

“Whenever my wife mentions our son, I cry,” Lasorda told me at a breakfast in Yorba Linda. “I’ve cried a lot.”

That speaks to his private space, but some sportswriters thought he had to come clean about his son.

And he did, talking about his death-bed farewell to his son.

“He kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, Daddy, that I had to get sick,’ and I remember telling him, “Son, I thank God you were alive all these years.’ And then he was gone.”

Yeah, but did he have AIDS, the muckrakers wanted to know, and go soak your head.

Hook him up to a lie detector and maybe that machine blows up, but how many Dodger fans walked away with the highlight of their lives because Lasorda wanted to spend time with them?

He certainly wasn’t perfect, gawd dammit, as he would tell you, but I would tell you he was the greatest Dodger of all time.

Who cares who was No.9 or No. 10? Email the Times’ troll.

by T.J. SIMERS

I thought it was pretty clever on the part of the Choking Dogs and Freddie Freeman to come up with the Surrender Dance to add a little spice to the Dogs annual swoon.

You know what I am talking about. They were showing it on TV all week leading up to the Dogs first playoff game, the arms high above the head, a little silly wiggle thrown in for entertainment and then yelling. “I surrender.”

I was in bed, but I’m told the Dogs’ David Peralta did the Surrender Dance late into Saturday night’s game; I can’t imagine him celebrating anything. That would be silly.

If you are a Dodgers’ fan you have to expect a playoff opener like Saturday night’s. There is no excuse for arriving late or sitting in traffic. And yet the Dogs were down something like 8 or 9 to nothing before some folks had parked their cars.

It was going to be a night of eating; the baseball was unwatchable.

Given Dodger parking lot history why does anyone arrive late looking for a place to park? Doesn’t speak highly of the intellect of Dogs’ fans, seeking the misery that comes with driving around the parking lot after the game has started.

On a positive note, you never saw Clayton Kershaw at work.

As Plaschke told us the Dogs are going to win the World Series, so no worries. But for a moment it wasn’t looking good there in Plaschke’s quest to be loved by the local fans.

Plaschke had written the Trojans were going to win all their games this season, but they had to go into triple overtime to beat a mediocre Arizona team on Saturday night.

How would Plaschke have handled a loss by the Dogs and the Trojans on the same day? He likes sob stories, but I don’t know if that includes tears from the columnist.

The Dodgers just have to stop winning so many meaningless regular-season games, allowing them to take a week off before opening the playoffs and listening to all the TV hype and newspaper mush extolling how great they are.

I thought I had heard the Dogs had like only one starting pitcher, so anyone picking them to win the World Series had to be really sucking up to the locals.

I read so much about Kershaw before the first playoff game, I thought someone had something new to report. I was wrong.

Pretty soon we should be reading in the Times, well, maybe you will still be reading, that the Lakers will go undefeated and win the NBA title.

By T.J. Simers

Three days after the Las Vegas Review-Journal removed box scores from the newspaper, the newspaper has been overwhelmed by upset readers.

As a result, the box scores will return Friday.

“All, a heads up that our print readers have spoken up,” wrote the executive editor of the Review-Journal to its employees in a memo. “They were not happy about losing their baseball box scores, so they’re coming back, effective in tomorrow’s edition.”

That means one of two things for the LA Times: The Times does not give a hoot what its readers want, or Times’ baseball readers have given up on the Times and didn’t think it was worth fighting for the return of box scores.

Either way, it’s damning, and a clearer sign of the Times’ demise.

Kudos to sports editor Bill Eichenberger of the Review-Journal who listened to the newspaper’s readers and opted to satisfy the newspaper’s readership.

I’m sure the LA Times’ sport editor Iliana Romero will just order up another soccer story.

Keep in mind the Times did not have to get rid of box scores; the newspaper will be going to new presses in February. The Times’ sports editor said she just wanted to get Times’ readers used to (being deprived).

At the very least, you can bet she will run another piece of Associated Press file art and a flowery feature—today a lot of different color LA baseball caps rather than a recap of how the Dodgers have dominated in recent weeks.

In short, the newspaper does not care if you are unhappy and apparently you have done little to make the LA Times feel what it means to disregard the paying customers.

By T.J. Simers

One more thing.

I know Frank McCourt still owns the Dodgers’ parking lots, but any chance he’s advising the front office this year on how to assemble a team?

How do you swing a trade for a guy who has it writing he doesn’t want to play for your organization? The Dodgers traded for a pitcher from Detroit and he informed them the Dodgers were one of 10 teams he had already decided not to join.

How much work went into vetting that trade? That’s the way the Dodgers I knew more than a decade ago behaved. They were a joke.

If a guy picks Detroit over LA, do you really want him?

Now I could have sworn LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke insisted in a column the Dodgers trade for a starting pitcher. They got Yarbrough; I thought he was a race car driver.

Plaschke also told the Angels to trade Ohtani; doesn’t anyone listen to this guy? He also wrote LeBron should be traded. The Times got mad at me because I said Arte Moreno might be the problem a decade ago; at least I was right.

The Dodgers didn’t do much in the offseason, taking on the look of a team owned by McCourt, and now went belly up at the trading deadline.

I think about all the words in the LA Times speculating on who the Dodgers might acquire, and I wonder if those boys at the LA Times are talking to the Dodgers’ front office or just guessing?

The Times’ writers were absolutely clueless; did any of them predict the team was going all in on the race car driver?

The conclusion: Trading deadline stories are a waste of time.

By T.J. Simers

I just loved a story in the LA Times newspaper’s sports section Tuesday morning.

It wasn’t on the first page of sports because there was no story there, just some artist showing off with fake art.

Nothing on the second page, and a Dodgers’ farm system story on page 3. I believe it’s the third-straight day of minor league Dodgers’ baseball and one day was too much.

Who cares who the Dodgers might throw into a trade they are not going to make for Ohtani.

It wasn’t on page 4 because that was all soccer with Kevin Baxter writing from Auckland, New Zealand about a pink-haired Angel City player who dyed her hair black to play for Japan in the World Cup. He wrote a second story about what I don’t know after reading it, but it was soccer.

That leaves only page 5 in the 5-page sports section, and there it was, a story I wanted to read: “Johnson stresses weight of new ownership role.”

I might have used “Magic,” in the headline instead of Johnson, but there I go being picky again.

I like/love reading about Los Angeles icons. Not all that crazy about Magic, the puffed-up team owner, but kudos to the Times’ Broderick Turner (a.k.a. Brad) for tracking Magic down on his yacht in Europe for an update.

Turner is the voice of authority when it comes to the NBA for the Times. He did a Q&A with Magic, and while Turner had to do a certain amount of sucking up because otherwise he would lose Magic’s cell access, he asked about Magic’s ownership in the NFL, MLB, NBA, MLS and WNBA.

I’m a horse owner, 1% in Kiddy Up, and I’m not sure beyond the fact it’s just one horse and loose change, that is much different than owning a piece of the Commanders, Lakers, Dodgers, Sparks and the LAFC.

But again, whatever my questions and doubts for Magic and his input in ownership, they are irrelevant. What matters here is Brad Turner giving newspaper readers something to read.

Why the Times buried it inside shows more of a disregard for its readers than Magic.

I used to interview Lasorda, Scully and Wooden every chance I had because they were LA icons. They might say something really interesting and maybe not, but it was Lasorda, Scully and Wooden.

This is Magic. A breath of fresh (hot) air after all the soccer, minor league baseball and boxing we have been force fed in the Times. Finally, a name we know and always want to know more about.

I was once involved in a newspaper survey, asking readers what they wanted to read. Shocking, I know.

Columns graded high, but the highest marks went to any story featuring a well-known sports figure. If it was a story about Fouts or Mickelson or Kobe, the readers couldn’t wait to gobble it up although there was no guarantee of anything new.

People want to know and read more about the people who have brought them so many thrills in their lives.

The Times has been more focused on the obscure lately, but then comes along Brad Turner with his phone call to Magic and Times’ readers are winners.

It should have been the page 1 story rather than buried inside. But congratulations to Turner for not letting that deter him from doing such a great job.

By T.J. Simers

I wasn’t surprised when I read former Dodger Steve Garvey was potentially going to run as a Republican for the open Senate seat in California.

Given his track record with women and unpaid bills, Garvey has the perfect choice for campaign manager in Donald Trump.

That’s not a political statement so much as the common ground shared by the well-known popular “do whatever they like and get away with it” duo.

I figure Garvey will ultimately decide not to run, too much baggage to tote in this age of stinging social media and Garvey lacking the ability to shrug it off like his prospective campaign manager.

On the other hand, I could be totally wrong, Garvey offering the voting public one of the great redemption campaigns of our lifetime. And maybe benefitting finally from all those “Honk if you”re carrying Steve Garvey’s love child” bumper stickers, the kiddos all grown up and ready to vote.

For the record I have always enjoyed my encounters with Steve Garvey even after he ruined my night after hitting a walk-off home run for the Padres to beat my Cubs in 1984.

I was there that dramatic night, Jack Murphy Stadum louder than any other ballpark I have ever been in and Garvey running around the bases with his fist flying over his head.

If you have been around Garvey he offers a challenge; is he Mr. Clean or is he a phony? I have always believed he’s just a nice guy.

We have had many, many friendly chats and one outlandish one.

He called me in 2006 to ask me to kill a story running in the Los Angeles Times. The front-page story detailed Garvey’s history of not paying his bills. (April 9, 2006 Former Dodger Great Facing Mound of Debt by Matt Lait, if you care to GOOGLE).

The story said the Garveys had been taken to small claims court by their gardener, a mirror installer and owed attorneys $300,000. His pediatrician reportedly would only accept cash from the Garveys. And the list went on and on.

There were two problems, 1) I couldn’t even consider killing the story because it was already plastered across the front page of the LA Times and 2) I had no idea if the story was true or not.

I knew who wrote the story and knowing the reporter’s reputation I figured it was true down to the last comma and period. And what an embarrassing story, Garvey and his wife coming across as scoundrels, one lawyer who was trying to collect a $235,000 debt, saying, “Once a Dodger always a dodger.”

I have no idea how his bill-paying goes now. So, it could be totally unfair to bring up 2000 to 2006 moments in Garvey’s life, but politics makes it almost a guarantee they will resurface.

That is why I don’t think Garvey will run for office. Too much explanation required.

I liked to ask Tom Lasorda over our breakfasts at the Mini Gourmet in Placentia whether Garvey was real or not? Lasorda said you got what you got from Garvey, and when mentioning the fight between Garvey and Don Sutton, Lasorda made it clear he was pulling for Garvey.

I apparently knew Garvey’s wife before he did, delivering the DuPage County Press to her parent’s home in Wheaton, Il. I had no trouble collecting payment for the newspaper.

When we have had that opportunity over the years to chat she has been great. Yet we have never discussed the thousands and thousands of dollars allegedly unpaid to debtors with claims against them.

Have they all been paid? I really don’t care, but if Garvey runs for office, there will be people who do care. Lots of them.

By. T.J. Simers

Dear Patrick Soon-Shiong,

KUDOS to the Times.

Dylan Hernandez wrote an excellent, strongly-worded, opinioned column for the LA Times recently on the Dodgers decision to cancel an invite to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence during the team’s upcoming Pride Night game.

He disagreed with the Dodgers and wrote the controversial column before waiting to see how others might react. That took some newspaper courage.

In the last few days Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw has said in a measured response that he opposes the Dodgers’ decision to reinstate the nun’s event while urging the team to bring back a Christian-faith night.

You couldn’t find two better spokesmen than each representing their point of view.

But I think they are also both dead wrong.

There is only one reason to honor groups brought to the ballpark, and that is to sell more tickets.

The same goes for the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little League teams and Rotary Clubs. The Dodgers want to sell more tickets, and that’s business. I guess it’s offensive to some to be in the hot dog line or finding their seats while the LGBTQ+ community parades on the field.

Maybe that’s why Dodgers crowds are so late-arriving.

In 2000, before I think Hernandez was even born, I covered the “Kissing Lesbians” fiasco at Dodger Stadium. Three women were tossed from the stadium for kissing each other after a Dodger home run. As you might imagine, everyone was shocked a Dodger hit a home run, and so there were all kinds of reactions

The Dodgers publicly apologized later for breaking up the smooch-fest. “We felt we wanted to send a strong message that everyone is welcome to Dodger Stadium,” said team president Bob Graziano. “and subject to equal treatment.”

Equal treatment is how it’s gone ever since. I have been to thousands of baseball games and most pregame festivities are ignored, the stadium essentially still empty as honored groups take a bow.

As for Kershaw if he doesn’t want to see the nuns, stay in the training room like so many players do before a game. As you have probably noticed seldom does a player you recognize take part in the pregame festivities.

Kershaw said this has nothing to do with the LGBTQ community, and you know why? That would make it a really big argument. With a ton more controversy.

He confined his criticism to a group of nuns I have never heard of. I was taught by nuns. On first glance this doesn’t seem anything like them unless they suddenly start smacking people with rulers, so I don’t know anyhing about them or care to know. I have no interest in them or Kershaw’s event. If I go to a Dodger game, and bless me Father for even mentioning such a possibility, it would be to watch Kershaw pitch.

To be honest, I attended many of those faith-based events while covering the Dodgers because they held them in the stands after a game while we wrote our stories about the Dodgers. I had no choice. I would have preferred silence, but the media always remained respectful.

That’s the only thing Hernandez and Kershaw should be calling for: respect, and as solid as they are as communicators that’s what they seem to be doing even if they disagree.

If the Dodgers want to be digging deep to sell more seats, why is that a problem? If it is, just don’t go that night.